


Postcards from the Edges

by Viridian5



Category: Andromeda (TV)
Genre: Drama, Episode Related, Gen, Poor Earth, The Commonwealth's shortcomings, Worldbuilding, tying up loose ends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 09:34:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7355569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viridian5/pseuds/Viridian5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not everyone forgot about Earth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Postcards from the Edges

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for “Under the Night,” “An Affirming Flame,” “It Makes a Lovely Light,” “The Widening Gyre,” “Bunker Hill,” “Immaculate Perception,” “Shadows Cast By a Final Salute,” “The Dissonant Interval Part 2,” “Phear Phactor Phenom,” and “The Heart of the Journey Parts 1 and 2.” All things _Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda_ belong to Gene Roddenberry’s estate, Tribune Entertainment Company, and Fireworks. No infringement intended.
> 
> The show tossed out so many ideas it never followed up on.... Siobhan Barrett and her history with Harper were introduced in my slash fic “[Raveling](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4859),” but I don’t think it’s necessary for this tale of what’s going on in the Commonwealth off-screen. It would certainly help though.

In the video message, Siobhan Barrett wore what Harper called her “Earth Pride” black leather jacket. Her Perseid librarian friends had made small reproductions of mission patches from human space exploration, like Bellerophon, Apollo 11, Columbia, Esperanza, Defiant, and Challenger. She had the stylized phoenix in the inverted triangle from Grey’s Division, the 8 ball of Chiang’s Irregulars, the laughing jester’s head of the Cassiopeia 176, and the insignia of a few other military and space cadres. One of her shoulders sported a shamrock and the other a fleur de lys, and beneath them she had an American flag on one side and a United Earth flag on the other. Most people had no idea what any of those patches meant anymore. The small trefoil biohazard symbol she wore beneath the UE flag showed her ties to the more aggressive wing of Free Earth. Not a lot of people would recognize it either.

Far better known and more politically charged these days was the sideways figure eight infinity symbol that was on the jacket as a reference to the Barretts’ Perpetual Tour and her prosthetic right arm. One bored Dragan asswipe one day had maimed her for sport, amused by the idea of lopping off a musician’s dominant hand. In three messy swings he’d taken off almost everything below her elbow and left scars on her leg and torso. Wayists managed to get her and her brother, Shane, off Earth as an emergency asylum thing. 

Out in space, she got the Perseids interested in making her a new arm by laying a challenge on them: could they make an arm with enough dexterity and flexibility in its wrists and fingers to skillfully play guitar? Harper got recruited into the design team for being a formerly-from-Earth guy in the area and having a similar accent to the Barretts. Turned out that some folks of Irish descent in Louisiana and Massachusetts sounded alike. They made her new arm a work of art as well as a wonder of science, with swirls and cloisonné but also two ports, a hidden blaster, and the hardware to run various applications even as it worked like a regular guitar-playing arm. She could even chicken pick with it.

Nietzscheans didn’t like some escapee kludge from Earth living it up out in space. While Dragans might be considered degenerate wimps by the standards of some Prides, they were still Nietzscheans and when a Nietzschean took an inferior down that kludge was supposed to stay _down_. 

But Nietzscheans didn’t run space the way they did Earth, and when they attacked Sio and her brother they got arrested and sometimes even killed in self-defense. The Barretts had the law and lawyers here. Now Nietzscheans “had” to avenge the fallen, embarrassed Nietzscheans the Barretts had put down, so attacks continued.

Hilariously, the media attention the Barretts got from all this gave them a platform to talk about the horrors and oppression on enslaved Earth, where otherwise they could’ve wished for Earth to be free but their message wouldn’t get out to anyone who didn’t follow their band and its music. The Nietzscheans basically kept shooting themselves in the face.

Not that anyone freed Earth, mind you, but it made some difference. 

So the Barretts had a lot of enemies, but for the best reasons. 

But Harper still wouldn’t want to trade places with them.

Aside from her Earth Pride jacket, Sio wore loose comfy clothes, though she still had traces of sparkle makeup on her face. “Hey, Shay. I don’t know if you heard about the El D incident yet, but I’m fine--”

“Stop message,” Harper said. Sio froze mid-gesture. “Andromeda, cross-reference Siobhan Barrett with El Dorado Drift for an incident in the last few months.”

“She faced another Dragan attack during a concert,” Andromeda replied. Then silence, then: “Harper, two Genites helped defend her.”

Genites. Knights of Genetic Purity. Great. It explained the “Knights of Something or Other” that Sio had turned away before. He said, “Resume message.” Okay, where was the Easter egg?

“--Just another day in the life, right? I told them that I appreciate the help but I’m just a musician, not political. They didn’t take it well. Big surprise.”

He heard the louder tone in “sur,” so he rewound and found the hidden sound layer disguised amongst the frequencies. Her image moved as the hidden voice track played, though the movement of her lips didn’t match the new words. “Gorace might have taken our refusal to join him worse if I hadn’t told him that maybe I’d reconsider if he freed Earth from the Dragans. I even told him that the slave worlds are a great place to recruit humans who aren’t genetically modified and hate Nietzscheans.”

“Sio, you’re a nut!” And correct about the recruitment possibilities.

“I know, I know, you’re probably thinking I’m insane,” she continued in the hidden voice track, just as if she’d known what he’d say, “but I’m crazy like a fox. He probably won’t bite, but if he does it might put a fire under the new Commonwealth’s tail. They had one brief session about Earth and the other slave worlds. Have you heard?” The lip movements might not have matched, but Sio had timed her presentations so her facial expressions and gestures could fit both tracks. He always had liked her precision and perfectionism. “One faction doesn’t give a damn about liberating the worlds. Another feels bad for the slaves, but the Commonwealth doesn’t have the money to waste... er, use on such a campaign, and they don’t want to offend their Uber buddies. Another one wants the worlds liberated and thinks it’s the right thing to do but isn’t in a hurry. They’ve been enslaved 300 years, so what’s a few more decades?” 

“Stop message.” Gorace couldn’t liberate Earth with his Knights. Could he? Would the Genites be worse than the Dragans?  

They couldn’t possibly be. 

Harper imagined liberated slaves joining the Genite cause, going into space, and bringing vengeance to the Nietzschean Prides. It didn’t seem like a bad thing, even if he did have one Nietzschean he liked some of the time.

“Dylan has to hear this,” Andromeda said, popping up next to him in hologram form. “The Commonwealth has to hear about this.”

“This is a personal message. Private!”

“The Commonwealth has to know that she dangled Earth in front of the Knights of Genetic Purity!”

“I thought that Earth had no strategic value. That’s your position, Dylan’s, and the Commonwealth’s. Well, well. Look who suddenly gets value now that somebody else might be interested.”  

“Dylan has to be told.”

“Gorace could have come up with this on his own.”

“Perhaps. Eventually. But he didn’t have to.”

“Yeah? On Earth we learned that talking didn’t work, but throwing a Molotov cocktail into the middle of things gets people’s attention. Besides, Gorace probably won’t do it. Resume message.”

Sio unfroze and crossed her arms. “Who voted these people in? Not me, since I live on a ship and don’t get a vote.”

Wait, what? “Stop message. Andromeda, is that right? If you don’t live on a planet or drift or whatever, you don’t have a voice in the new Commonwealth?”

Andromeda sounded way too superior. “Citizens vote for a representative for their enclave. People who live on ships don’t have an enclave.”

“So they’re disenfranchised.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“I would. Beka lived on the Maru all her life until we moved here. You’re another ship, ya know.”

“I know that.”

“So we have no voice in the new Commonwealth aside from what being Captain Commonwealth’s crew gets us. Lots of people live on their ships, but they don’t count? That sucks. Resume message.”

“If they had the Genites stirring things up, it might inspire them to get off their wide political asses and reassess the situation. It’s not like they can do any less than they’re already doing. Some of my friends are genetically enhanced, but I can still use the enemy of my enemies. Over.” Sio froze as the hidden track hit its end.

“Dylan--” Andromeda started.

“I get to listen to _my_ message all the way to the end, okay?” Harper rewound to the point in the message he’d stopped at.

Sio smirked. “They didn’t take it well. Big surprise. People refuse to understand that we’re not political. Then again, everybody else is political lately now that we have the Commonwealth.”

“Stop message.” Another louder tone on “wealth.” This time he needed a different frequency. Sio didn’t believe in taking chances.

Sio shook her head. “Things are bad, Shay. We have two bureaucracies to get through at each stop now, each of them trying to shake us down. I’ve never had so many people interested in where I’ve been and where I’m going. The Commonwealth follows a ‘three F’ system: forms, fees, and fines. I know a few bands that can’t afford to tour several worlds or Drifts anymore and some that have knuckled under to corporate tampering in their music just to have someone cover their costs. Sam Profit offered to help us out of the goodness of his heart, but since I know he has no goodness and no heart, I passed. We did a little tour with Parasite Tendency to try to cut costs, but can you believe that the Commonwealth charged us more at each stop for touring _together_? I had to hold Shane back from hurting somebody when that flunky told us. My lawyers are the only people I know who love the new Commonwealth. Though mail delivery is better now. Anyway, I’m longing for the Long Night. Over.”

“ _That_ Dylan has to hear,” Harper said.

Andromeda looked much less happy over that. 

  


* * *

Harper went right to the Easter egg in Sio’s latest message to get: “I heard about the Andromeda and Hunt rescuing Tri-Jema and the Commonwealth kickstarting back into operating mode, but contact me, will ya? Show me you’re still alive. Please be okay. And tell me what you think about the surviving Dragans claiming Earth as their new homeworld.”

“ _What_?” Damn it. Of course they had.

“Shane’s so smug about never having trusted Anasazi. I just want to hear from you, Shay.” 

He figured she would, but he’d need to sit on it for a while before answering. With everything that had happened, even he didn’t know what he felt or thought right now. 

  


* * *

“Shay, I wanted to explain the rumors you might be hearing. I drummed up enough people to badger the politicians into making a ruling on Earth. Unfortunately, it wasn’t anything like what I’d want. They ruled that they _can’t_ make a ruling unless Earth’s human population has a representative to speak to them. As if slaves can vote or leave their planet.”

“Bastards,” Harper spat.

“They’re claiming that this isn’t the right time to help Earth’s human slaves, since the Magog are coming and the Abyss is such a threat. As if there won’t always be _something_ going on somewhere. The politicians are odious people--no surprise, I guess--which makes me even unhappier about the decision we had to make. I _am_ an Earth human out in space, and I may be one of the best known ones. Of course, there aren’t many of us....”

Harper saw where this was heading. “You gotta be kidding me.”

“I already have people out to kill me, so I decided that I might as well take up politics. Despite the Perseids putting in a word for me, the councils didn’t want to allow me in as an Earth representative because Terrans didn’t vote me their representative. Pointing out that they’re slaves who aren’t allowed to do _anything_ made no impression. So the ship folk demonstrated in several Drifts and on Tarazed saying that I could be _their_ representative, since they’re currently disenfranchised and if I supported Earth while there, that was fine by them.” She sounded as surprised as Harper felt. “They put enough pressure on the councils to let me in.

“Shane and I will finish our commitments as the Barretts and then I take up politics and he works as my secretary and minion. I’m a musician, Shay. It’s what I love. This... is not what I wanted to do with my life, but somehow I’m the best person for the job.” She laughed. “Listen to me. Like Shane and I are the next martyrs. Not that we won’t defend our lives with extreme prejudice!” 

Harper had never thought the Barretts’ Perpetual Tour would end like this. Still, he was glad Earth would have _someone_ trying to look out for it. 

  


* * *

Harper sat in his room on Andromeda Ascendant staring numbly at the wall, something he spent a lot of time doing lately. His eyes looked permanently puffy these days and felt as dry as the desert after all the crying jags, as if crying ever helped anything but for a while he could barely stop. Drinking didn’t help; _nothing_ helped. He felt so old, tired, and lost. Everything seemed pointless. While he put on a happy face, or at least a calm face, for other people, most of them saw through it. 

He’d thought he’d been an expert on grief and losing things, but Earth’s destruction had proven him wrong. 

There was also something weird about mourning something so hard while Dylan floated around so thrilled at having Tarn Vedra back and being feted as a hero for destroying the Abyss and saving the populated Known Worlds of three galaxies from total destruction. Everyone around Harper was celebrating that--though Beka at least tried not to be in his face with it--and they _should_ celebrate. They didn’t pay the price he did. It felt like he lived in a different reality from them. 

Harper didn’t know if he even could stand to be here anymore, on this ship with Dylan as his captain. Earth and all its non-Uber people had been utterly destroyed to score a point against Dylan, who didn’t even care about Earth. The only thing that connected Dylan Hunt to Earth was Harper. Making this _Harper’s_ fault. Again.

He’d spent almost three years in hell on Seefra without this crew, but their reunion had been more insults and recriminations than rainbows and lemon drops, as if Beka and Rhade hadn’t been working the dark side too and Dylan had only just arrived so he hadn’t needed to hustle to survive. Even Doyle had thrown him over for Dylan. While he still cared about them, he didn’t know if they felt the same about him, though they’d gotten somewhat better toward him since leaving Seefra. 

Why was he here? 

Why was he still alive when so many weren’t?

“Harper,” Andromeda said, “I have a transmission from Siobhan Barrett for you. Will you accept the call?” She sounded nearly hopeful.

He’d been interacting with as few people as he could manage lately. “Yeah. Put her on screen?” 

Sio looked rough and worn around the edges herself, her eyes also red and puffy. “Shay, it’s so good to see you. Good to actually interact with you. We’ve just been doing monologues at each other for ages.”

“It _has_ been a long time,” he replied. Longer than she knew. “I know what you’re calling about.” 

“I wanted to make sure you were okay--well, as okay as you could be under the circumstances--especially since reports of what went down on Arkology are sketchy and contradictory, but yeah, Earth, no kidding. Sorry.” 

He’d _died_ on Arkology, killed by a Magog, but then showed up alive but confused on a hellhole of a planet with only an angry Rommie’s head as his companion until he literally made people to be his friends. Did his life ever stop sucking? But Sio worried about him enough already, so he didn’t mention any of that and just replied, “You were one of the first people I thought of too, after the whole thing with the Abyss was over. I just didn’t know where you were. So I don’t blame you.”

“Thanks. Were you really there as--?”

“Oh, yeah. If I’d left the Andromeda a few minutes earlier, I might’ve been chunks of space debris along with the planet and everything else.” Instead he got to live with more blood on his hands and all his ghosts. “Now that Earth’s gone, are you still doing the politician thing?”

“For now, yeah. I worry like hell that people will try to let the scum that killed our planet walk away scot-free from this. Because we don’t want to offend our treacherous, sometimes-allies the Nietzscheans. Because what’s really important is their precious fee-fees.”

Damn it. “You’re not kidding, are you.”

“Nope. Wish I was. The Abyss’ Uber allies didn’t poof out of existence when you guys nailed the Abyss, so they need to be brought to justice, and I will be a pain in the ass if I have to to get it done.”

They needed to _die_. “If I can be any help in that, give me a ring.” Maybe he could do some good for it while on the Commonwealth’s flagship warship. Not get Andromeda herself to help, since he doubted Dylan cared all that much, but here Harper had access to weapons, slipfighters, and parts. Things could disappear at the right time....

“Thanks. But I’m also thinking that Earth really needs a wake, and that the Barretts are just the people to do it. A big tour, featuring Earth’s music, images, and some of its cultures, to keep our planet in people’s tiny attention spans and show them what we all lost. It’ll be an epic undertaking, and I don’t know how I’ll make it work or have the details worked out but....”

He immediately felt a spark of something flare up in the cold, wet, grimy ashes of his heart. “No, that’s good. It’s necessary. I wanna help.” It gave him something positive, even life-affirming, to keep busy and work on for himself, not for the fairly useless Commonwealth. Maybe this could help him claw his way back up into being a functioning human being. He _needed_ this.

Her smile looked tenuous and weary, but it _was_ a smile. “It’s good to have you back, Shay.”

“It’s good to be back.” At least it was a start.

 

### End


End file.
